Electrochemically or galvanically deposited chromium layers have been considered prior art for many years in functional and decorative fields of use and in applications for coating electrically conductive and non-conductive workpieces.
The use of structured, electrochemically produced hard chrome layers has gained increasing importance in the past few years and especially recently. In particular, the use of functional structures is showing a strong upward trend. Typical applications are found in the coating of printing rollers for better wetting thereof with ink, in rollers for embossing metal sheets, for improving the deep-drawing processes for the automobile industry and also in storage, for protection against wear and for reduction of friction.
However, the structured layers employed according to the prior art all have a pronounced spherical laminar structure. The size of the spherical shapes varies between less than 1 μm and several μm. The degree of occupation or the density of the spherical laminar structure is more or less variable, depending on the particular method.